Snapchat ups its Social Media Ante

Silicon Valley C.A. is home to quite a few startups, with Snapchat being one of the prominent ones. It has been pioneering quite a few trends on social media with the others in the space such as Instagram, Slingshot and even Facebook.

Snapchat has now gone ahead and released a critical new update which it believes will help in roping in even more advertising and brand promotion revenue onto its platform to try and grab as large a piece of the bludgeoning over $ 550 billion global advertising market.

This, it aims to do, with warping reality with backdrops and advanced voice filters.

The Update - Backdrops, Discrete voice filter & Paperclip

‘Backdrops’ is a new feature using which the always active snapchatter can now add a distinct creative pattern behind an object or person on the snap being uploaded to try and give the image a more distinctive and pronounced outlook. What one needs to do to access this new feature is click on the scissors icon in the vertical toolkit and subsequently chose the diagonally striped square icon (the backdrop icon), finger trace over the person or object that’s supposed to be in the foreground select a backdrop image and wait for the creativity to unfurl. These images just like its regular filters will rotate daily.

‘Voice Filters’ this is an already existing feature which just simply put has been made better and more expensive. Snapchatters, now, over and above the voice filters associated with the augmented visual reality filters (which had the option of you sounding like bumblebee) just have to click on the speaker icon present at the bottom of the screen and then just select a filter from the already present collection to add a healthy dose of style as well as humor.

‘Paperclip’ is a feature one would argue as already being present on Snapchat’s arch rival’s platform - Instagram, which is basically the support of an external link giving additional details or literature about the snap. While posting a snap, you simply need to click on the icon resembling a paperclip on their vertical toolkit which will display a dialogue box wherein the link can be posted for the viewers to check out. The information or content present on this link will open on snapchat’sown internal browser.

Going ahead with this update Snapchat has broken its long-standing rule of ‘NO links’ on its app.

Snapchat, in its IPO filing, had stated a base of active 158 million users as compared to the over 200 million of Instagram stories (which is yet to even clock its first anniversary). What stands to be seen now is how users adjust to this new update and how do and promoters target and customize this for their advertising needs and how much of advertising revenue Snapchat manages to garner with it.